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Farewell to the NHS, 1948-2013: a dear and trusted friend finally murdered by Tory ideologues

60 replies

ttosca · 31/03/2013 22:32

This week's 'reforms' of a treasured institution - by people who came to power promising not to mess with it - is yet another sickening assault on the poor by the rich

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Nothing is more gut-wrenching than watching a close friend dying in front of you. And I mean beyond close: a friend who brought you into the world, helped raise you, and was there whenever you were most desperately in need. So, spare a moment for our National Health Service. Time of death: midnight, 1st April 2013. Cause of death: murder.

That this will strike many as hyperbole is because the assault on the NHS is one of the most scandalously under-reported issues in modern British history. Newsnight actually devoted a piece to scrutinising the privatisation of an institution once described by Tory Chancellor Nigel Lawson as ?the nearest thing the English have to a religion?.

Only two years too late, then. Frequently, the attack is presented on the Government?s own terms: as the simple devolution of power to doctors and patients. Cuts of up to £20bn by 2015 are spun as ?savings?. And who can disagree with ?savings??

A charitable explanation would be the sheer complexity of the Tory assault. The Health and Social Care Act is more than three times longer than the legislation that established the NHS in the first place. When I asked journalists adamantly opposed to the Tory plans why they had failed to adequately cover this travesty, they sheepishly responded it was too complicated: it went over their heads.

Cynical though it may be, that so many of those running our glorious ?free? media are covered by private health insurance should not be ignored either.

From today, strategic health authorities and primary care trusts are formally abolished. Some £60bn of the NHS budget is now in the hands of clinical commissioning groups, supposedly run by GPs. This is a sham, though one which turns local doctors into human shields for the privatisers. In reality, the vast majority of GPs will keep on doing what they do already ? looking after patients ? while commissioning will be managed by private companies.

It?s worse than that. Under the Government?s Section 75 regulations ? even after they were revised after huge political pressure ? all NHS services must be put out to competitive tender unless the commissioning groups are satisfied a ?single provider? can deliver that service. But as the British Medical Journal has asked, how can they ?be sure there is only one possible provider except by undertaking an expensive tender??

Indeed, were they to refrain from doing so, they would risk a costly legal battle. As over a thousand doctors and nurses warned last month, the regulations will ?force virtually every part of the English NHS to be opened up to the private sector?. A free-for-all in the English NHS beckons.

As Dr Lucy Reynolds, a research fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, puts it, ?the public sector will shrink away, and the private sector will grow?. All NHS hospitals will be forced to become foundation hospitals, laying the ground for them to be pushed into the private sector. That process is happening to my own local hospital, the Whittington Hospital, which is selling £17m worth of assets and faces 230 fewer beds and 570 job losses.

Let?s be clear what it at stake: services, people?s health and even lives. As Professor Terence Stephenson of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges put it last week, doctors? warnings had been ignored, and ?unnecessary competition [would] destabilise complex, interconnected local health economies, in particular hospitals, potentially having adverse effects on patient services?.

And a warning from a leading member of a profession not known for overstating a case: patients could be ?in danger from complications? from a fragmented NHS. Resources will no longer be distributed on the basis of need: the rules of the market now rule supreme. ?It?s chaos, really,? says Brian James, until recently chief executive of the Rotherham Foundation Trust. Small and medium-sized hospitals will be ?bankrupted by the market and more will be pulled into the big teaching hospitals?.

The great sell-off of our NHS is already well under way. Virgin Care now run more than 100 NHS services across the country, from radiology departments to GP clinics. Last year, they were given a £100m contract to run services in Surrey, and a £130m contract to run key NHS services for young people in Devon. Not that you?d know, of course: services run by the profiteering vultures circling ahead operate under the NHS logo, hiding privatisation from public view.

Just where is the opposition? Labour, the mother of the NHS, is hobbled by its own record. Although it injected desperately needed cash into our health services when last in power, New Labour helped to lay the foundations for this Tory offensive. Former Labour Health Secretary Frank Dobson once condemned government plans to contract out commissioning, ?with private companies handing work to private hospitals... If that wouldn?t amount to privatisation, I don?t know what would.?

But that was 2006, and it was Tony Blair in office. The disaster of New Labour?s Private Finance Initiative ? the equivalent of buying public services on a credit card ? has left hospitals saddled with debts of £79bn. Hospital trusts face bankruptcy as a result.

Labour?s own health spokesperson, Andy Burnham, has commendably pledged to repeal the Tories? NHS Act. But let?s not forget that the last time they were in opposition, Labour pledged to renationalise the railways: on assuming office, it was deemed politically impossible. That must not happen again, and pressure must be brought on the Labour leadership to reject their own past.

The Tories didn?t have the guts to put their proposals before the electorate. Despite its flaws, the NHS had record levels of public satisfaction before the Tories began systematically dismantling it. You need only look to the US ? where their inefficient market-driven system consumes twice as much of GDP as our NHS ? to see the superiority of publicly-run healthcare. New Labour?s own privatisation doubled the cost of administration in our NHS.

It was Nye Bevan (pictured above, in 1948) who said ?The NHS will last as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it?. It is with huge regret that I must say that ? however much faith we have ? we did not fight to save it. The NHS has been killed, murdered, assassinated by a Tory government. The question now is ? do we have enough faith to bring it back to life?

www.independent.co.uk/voices/farewell-to-the-nhs-19482013-a-dear-and-trusted-friend-finally-murdered-by-tory-ideologues-8555503.html

OP posts:
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crazynanna · 31/03/2013 22:35
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Sunnywithshowers · 31/03/2013 22:55
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Chipstick10 · 31/03/2013 23:00

The nhs needs a massive overhaul. It needs reforming of that I have no doubt.

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NorthernLurker · 31/03/2013 23:04

why chipstick?

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Darkesteyes · 01/04/2013 00:35
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MyChildDoesntNeedSleep · 01/04/2013 00:40

It's just too complicated....I don't get what is happening!

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KB02 · 01/04/2013 00:58

Thanks for your post OP. I now feel I have a bit more of an idea of what is happening

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HeroineChick · 01/04/2013 01:05

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Fanjango · 01/04/2013 01:16
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lotsofdogshere · 01/04/2013 07:51

another black armband. I had a review at podiatry last week when I was told I could only have one pair of orthotics, because they now charge £50 for a 2nd pair. I have been given two pairs a year for 20 years now, because I sometimes struggle to use my hands effectively, so moving them between shoes can be a problem. The very helpful biomechanics person expressed sadness and told me the NHS is so far down the privatisation path already.

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AuntieStella · 01/04/2013 08:00

I suppose I'm of the vague hope it'll all muddle through brigade.

But am displeased with the thread title,as it underplays bt far the actions of New Labour, not just in PFI but in bringing private providers into NHS. They are the ones who sold the principle and started this type of reform. Never, ever, let the true initiators off the hook.

The Tories might get called nasty, but if you look at Labour's actual recent record, they are nastier.

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ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 01/04/2013 08:15

RIP NHS England

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AuntieStella · 01/04/2013 08:19

Of course, if you post on more than one site than MN, you'll see eslewhere the uncannily similar bashing threads which appear in close time-frame.

I'm beginning to think the AstroTurf klaxon has been bout back into use in Labour HQ. pity, more interesting debate when it wasn't so obviously used/followed.

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ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 01/04/2013 08:25

To be fair the title does say "finally murdered", it was brutally mugged by Labour too.

Party politics aside this an tremendously sad day' and the beginning of the end of Britain, and deserves some mourning.

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xigris · 01/04/2013 08:44

I've worked for the NHS for nearly 20 years and currently in a hospital that's under threat (well that narrows it down. not) Anuerin must be spinning in his grave. SadAngry

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Bilbobagginstummy · 01/04/2013 08:48

I don't know who the "we" is supposed to be in the last paragraph. Journalists?

Any political party that wished to reverse it could do so easily. But they none of them do - why would they when they can get directorships with the companies that lobby them. No one else has any power, so having "faith" isn't going to help.

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StealthPolarBear · 01/04/2013 08:56

RIP NHS. It has been good working with you.

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AuntieStella · 01/04/2013 09:05

Fair enough!

But there are three AstroTurf titled threads active just on MN this morning; containing some information which is downright wrong. And all tending to assign 'blame' to "nasties" without looking at who sold the principle in the first place; and of course who broke the finances so that public services became unaffordable.

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Rosa · 01/04/2013 09:10

Genuine question. in the areas mentioned that are run by Virgin Care has it been a total washout ? i honestly have no idea was just wondering ( P.s I diddn't vote as live abroad and my registration details are lost so they say!!,)

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YellowandGreenandRedandBlue · 01/04/2013 09:11

Auntie Stella, the NHS changes are ideological. Argue for them if you wish but don't wring hands and say it had to be done, it didn't, it was a conscious choice by the government of today.

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AuntieStella · 01/04/2013 09:13

Of course they made choices that fitted with their ideology! I'm not a twerp.

But they would not have been able to make a number of these had Labour not already sold the underlying principles, leaving the way ahead open and supported by their precedent.

And the choices would have been different had the Government not been broke. That's a pretty obvious point too.

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YellowandGreenandRedandBlue · 01/04/2013 09:17

What annoys me is everyone blames the government before. No one has any forward vision. What would you do going forward Auntie Stella?

Would you have chosen the same course if you had been in charge in 2010?

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Madamecastafiore · 01/04/2013 09:21

I work in the nhs and often think how much better it would be run if it was run like a private company. Being able to buy things from a supplier because they are cheapest not because some dick in procurement says we have to get them from nhs supplies. Being able to actually get rid of shit staff when they fuck up rather than having them go off sick with stress for a couple of months at the mere whiff of disciplinary action backed up by a union rep who makes it almost impossible to get rid of under performing, lazy arsed staff. Only promoting and giving pay rises to staff who show good work practice and commitment rather than lobbing then an increment each year just for turning up.

It's funny people making out as though the nhs is some sort of perfect working model when it is actually dying a death and haemorrhaging money left right and centre!

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AThingInYourLife · 01/04/2013 09:21

"And the choices would have been different had the Government not been broke. That's a pretty obvious point too."

If you believe these costly changes were made to save money, you're a fool.

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AuntieStella · 01/04/2013 09:30

The different choices would have needed to have been made from 1997 onwards, if the introduction of the private sector into NHS were to have been avoided. The obvious answers would have been to have greater control over PFI (the T&Cs of the better, less unaffordable, ones should have been standard; and some deals should not have been PFI), and perhaps the full cost should have been carried by the public sector anyhow - though of course that would reduce the money available to be spent elsewhere. However, these were "boom" years - thus it was (unusually) affordable, unless your aim was to 'spend now and leave the problems on our successors'.

Also, the capacity within NHS could have been examined differently, so that certain areas did not need to be "sold" as Labour did, to private providers. This both increased private capacity, and led to an apparent "balancing" of NHS books, when actually they were no longer providing service to need, but service to spec (with a place to shove the excess procedures).

This created an illusion of a functioning NHS, and meant that despite headlines on investment, this was created by 'smoke and mirrors' (moving things off the balance sheet). It also stoked the growth of private medical provision (indigenous and from abroad) without which none of e current changes could take place.

So those are the choices I would reverse. By 2010, the financial mess was there. But with a lesser PFI burden and an ungroomed private sector, the choices coukd not have looked like this.

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